Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Projection: 138 CPC, 90 LPC, 50 BQ, 30 NDP

With all of the polls that came out after the holidays, a projection update was long overdue. And here it is!Small changes, but significant changes.

The Conservatives, who have been growing update after update since September, post their first major loss, almost an entire point nationally. They now stand at 35.5%, lower than both their 2008 and 2008 electoral results. They are also down three seats, all of them in Ontario, and stand at 138. Compared to the mid-December projection, the Conservatives haven't posted a gain anywhere, and the only small losses they have were in Atlantic Canada and the North (0.2 points each). Their biggest loss comes in Ontario (1.2 points) where they now stand at 38.0%. They're also down 0.8 points in the Prairies, 0.6 points in British Columbia, 0.5 points in Alberta, and 0.4 points in Quebec.

Nationally, the Liberals posted a tiny, 0.1-point gain to 28.2%. But more importantly they are up two seats to 90. They did not post gains throughout the country, however. They are down 0.2 points in Atlantic Canada (and one seat) and 0.3 points in Alberta and Quebec. Their gains came in the North (0.1 points), British Columbia (0.2 points), the Prairies (0.3 points) and Ontario (0.6 points and three seats). Being up in BC and Ontario is important for the Liberals, but losing ground in Atlantic Canada and Quebec is not a good sign.

The NDP make the largest national gain, up 0.3 points to 16.3% and up one seat to 30. Their regional results remained stable however, only losing 0.1 points in Quebec but not gaining more than 0.3 points anywhere else. They are up 0.1 points in British Columbia, the Prairies, Atlantic Canada (where they pick up their seat) and the North. They're up 0.2 points in Ontario and 0.3 points in Alberta.

The Bloc Quebecois had a good month, as they are 0.4 points in the province up to 38.1%, matching their 2008 electoral results.

The Greens are up a tiny bit (0.1 points), and remained unchanged in Ontario, Quebec, Atlantic Canada, and the North. They're up 0.1 points in British Columbia, down 0.1 in Alberta, and up 0.4 in the Prairies.

So, every party makes some gains at the expense of the Conservatives. The winner this month has to be the NDP, as they are posting slow but steady growth. The Bloc is also doing well, while the Liberals are showing mixed, but overall, improvement. Only the Tories had a uniformly bad month.

50 comments:

Looks like our centre-left nation is drifting even more left...or is it since the Libs and Cons are moving right for some unknown reason people are now gravitating towards the NDP - the Libs and Cons are becoming disconnected from the citizens of the country I guess.

While the Conservatives certainly did have some legal success, the story isn't quite over so it would be too early to claim complete victory.

To take a different angle, do you feel these kinds of electoral spending methods are ethical (no matter who does them)?

One of the great things about Canadian democracy is that electoral spending is relatively low, so parties are not beholden to special interests. Think of the money (what was it, 2 billion in all?) spent during the American election campaign. It's outrageous.

--- "Does that mean that you think that the CPC acted unethically in this case, Eric? They seem to be playing by the same rules as everyone else."

While they may not have broken the letter of the law, I do believe that they have broken the spirit of the law. So, yes, I think it is unethical (and if the other parties did it, then it would be unethical too).

--- "Do you think it was ethical for Elections Canada to single out the CPC, rather then go after everyone who did similar things?"

From what I can tell, the other parties were not doing the same thing.

--- "Also if you are concerned about how much money the Parties have, and spend, should we not eliminate the $2 voter subsidy that goes to the parties? The less they have, the less they will spend. Why limit the spending on the back end when we can turn off the spigot up front?"

I'd support eliminating the tax break on donations to parties. Federal funding is important, however, as it ensures parties are independent.

The CPC has the most small donors of all the parties and recieves the lowest % of their revenue stream from the per vote subsidies.

The BQ recieves the highest percent of their money from the per vote subsidies.

The Liberals have a long history on relying on a small pool of large donors. Rocco Rossi's "successs" at fundraising this tax year seems to have been about getting large donors to front load their commitments.

"they are subsidised by the taxes"

No. There is a difference between subsidies (gov't giving people money) and a tax break (gov't not taking as much money.)

As a society we have decided that a certain percent of a person's income can be donated to various causes. It doesn't count towards their income and it isn't taxed.

You aren't subsidizing anything. That's the decision society has made, that the gov't won't have a monopoly on poltiical, social, charitable, and environmental funding.

"At least with the per-vote subsidy, I can believe my taxes are going to the party I voted for"

Your taxes and the taxes of people who didn't vote and the taxes of people who voted for other parties or live in Alberta.

I don't understand that ethical argument. If we have a coherent ruleset governing behaviour, do ethics even continue to exist on those issues?

Once we agree to follow certain rules, those are the rules that govern our behaviour. Ethics no longer matter because they're not there. It's nonsensical to describe behaviour that abides by the accepted rules as ethical or unethical.

Oh Ira, you can't believe that. Plenty that is legal but also "wrong" happens, and there are plenty of examples of countries doing things that were legal according to their laws but reprehensible nevertheless.

To elaborate, if something is "wrong" it needs to be wrong according to some standard (perhaps an unwritten ehtical standard). But if we've agreed to some set of rules governing that behaviour, then the unwritten standards cease to be relevant, and I would argue they even cease to exist.

The rules governing campaign financing as laid out by parliament and elections Canada are necessarily exhaustive. There can be no other rules any party can be reasonably expected to follow (or even be aware of).

I don't believe that a party is acting ethically when it exploits loopholes which contravene the spirit of electoral law. Eventually, loopholes like these will be closed, and then acting in the same way will be considered unlawful, as well as unethical.

Pretend you're back in 1995 and write raw HTML like a Real Man. The first link in my previous post used this text: <a href="http://threehundredeight.blogspot.com/2009/08/party-funding-not-so-simple.html">here</a>. That's what the hint underneath the "Leave your comment" box means. You can View>Page Source for additional inspiration; if you do, previewing your comment is strongly recommended.

I have an even better idea. Why not simply ban any partisan advertising during non-election campaign periods so we don't have to endure all these crap attack ads when we are not in an election campaign.

I've noticed something about those Atlantic Canada numbers though; they seem to be returning to 2006 levels, where the Liberals were at 40%, Conservatives 35%, and the Dippers at 22%.

However, the polling lately has pinned the NDP with a higher strength, while the Conservatives are around their '06 mark, and the Liberals are down - meaning one of two things: either the Liberal vote is going to the NDP, while the Cons are stable at normal levels of support; or the NDP is taking from both, and there is some transfer between the Cons and Grits, which sort of balances those two out.

Ira: Once an established ruleset is in place ethics become meaningless.

I've heard this view in past from a teen with no experience in the business world. I recommend an over-the-beer discussion with a lawyer or a senior executive. In fact, talk to as many of them as you can find about ethics and moral responsibilities. You may be surprised. Conrad Black is an outlier.

John I actually think the recent emphasis on social responsibility is an abandonment of fiduciary responsibility.

If I want to maximize my RRSP growth and some idiot is throwing invester money at random charities and adopting "green" technologies with lower efficiency then i'm going to be mad as hell and probably divest.

Ira, I am undecided on what the ideal method of political party funding is. But, surely you don't really mean the following as a general point:"It doesn’t make sense to ask if behaviour is ethical when it’s clearly defined as acceptable or unacceptable by an established set of rules."As my philosophy teacher once said, "If the law allowed you to torture babies, would you still say it was ethical to obey the law?"There are lots of things that are legal that are nonetheless immoral.

And I want to investigate that. What is your standard for determining that some aspect of a rule is a loophole? Do you have such a standard? If not, how do you know you've correctly identified something as a loophole?

In our next lesson we'll cover coding in assembler.No, in my experience, after showing someone how to do the embedded link, the next question is "how do I make it show the angle brackets like you did"?

Your taxes and the taxes of people who didn't vote and the taxes of people who voted for other parties or live in Alberta.What is your rationale for that? Excluding those who did not vote, and assuming I pay at least $2 in taxes (GST takes care of that), then giving $2 to a party based on how many votes they received is effectively me giving that party $2. How would you construe that I am contributing anything to the $2 that some other party received?

It is the political contribution tax credit that results in me subsidizing other parties. I am paying more tax to balance the budget due to taxes not collected (because of the political contribution tax credit), and that is effectively forcing me to give money to parties I do not support, simply because other people gave them money.

Goaltender Interference - You're approaching opinions backward. You've made an assertion and asked me to dispute it, but you've failed utterly to support your assertion. You have not shown that anyone would have any reason to hold the position you put forth.

I can't really know that something is blue. The label blue is arbitrary. I learned that the colour I perceive when my eyes detect light dominated by energy with a wavelength of 440–490 nm is generally called blue, so when I see something relevantly similar to that I call it blue.

Whether I see it the same as you do is unknowable to me.

But that it is blue isn't used to justify anyone's actions. I'm not claiming that the "is" of something being blue justifies an "ought" with regard to someone's behaviour.

Your claim is that the taxes you pay are going to the party you vote for. This is incorrect.

Your taxes go to pay for core services, for the military, for debt payments, for everything really.

Only if you pay more taxes then you use in services can you say that your taxes actually pay for the political subsidy. This is questionable because a great deal of taxes come from corporations and bussiness.

Also, remember we have a staggering deficit, so technicallly your taxes aren't really paying off any program completely.

Now, if you do happen to be a net contributer then you're likely paying for OTHER voters.

For instance, since Albertans contribute the most money to our confederation they are paying for the Bloc!

People who vote and don't pay taxes (some students, the unemployed) also have other people paying for their subsidy.

That's only ironic if you assume an exlcuded middle. The rational default position is one of uncertainty - Ockham's razor writ large. I can accept that a ruleset is a ruleset, because that's definitionally true, but you're positing the existence of some sort of meta-content that identifies aspects of the ruleset as loopholes, and I'd like to know why.

I'd like to reiterate a previous comment. "who gets to choose what is a loophole"

As has been said a loophole or "in the spirit of" is based largely on the morals one carries. And a couple stark examples have been provided to bolster the argument.

But morals.... aren't written in stone, nor are they static across all groups.

One might look at a strapping young Omish fellow on the nude beaches in Nice, France as one example. Others are closer to home. Like giving someone some money so you can go on polluting (carbon credits are not used solely by faceless corporations either). Some feel needle safe houses like insight in Vancouver are beneficial, while others question the value. Some people think there should be a social program to take care of every conceivable need a person could have... and others think that personal responsibility should be paramount.

Just today a new story came up about a 12yr old girl having an epileptic seizure in a KFC and receiving 2nd degree burns after she ended up face down in the poutine (which.. obviously was hot). And several people had some outcry about how hot the food was, how fast she was attended to, and why it was a patron that had to use the KFC phone to call 911. But on the other side some of us question why you would buy hot food for a 12 yr old you knew had a history of seizures not to mention being a kid who is still learning about how hot some things are..... and then leave her unattended while you head off to the bathroom.

So who makes the judgment call? Who decides what is "in the spirit of" or a loophole. Who's morals are paramount? The people who believe in honor killings? The people running the Spanish inquisition? The people who think the earthquake in Haiti is the result of a deal with the devil 200 years ago? The one who thinks it is a result of doing not enough on global warming at Copenhagen?

Nearly all of them have large followings. Why is one set of morals more important than another?? Because it isn't yours?

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